Great moments in Op-Ed

Of all the objections I've seen to the Roberts nomination, this one takes the cake:

I am against the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court. In his remarks after being nominated by President Bush on television, Judge Roberts referred to the United States as a constitutional democracy. The fact is the United States of America is a constitutional republic. Two different meanings and two different philosophies. If Judge Roberts is a Harvard Law School graduate and does not know our form of government, then he is dangerous.

Sheesh! Where do you start with people like this?

Here's what I wrote back:

Kerry L. Ruth's letter calling Judge Roberts "dangerous" because he referred to the U.S as a constitutional democracy is just plain nuts. I don't know where this obsession with the difference between a democracy and a republic came from, but it's a distinction without much difference. No matter what term he uses, I can assure the doubters that John Roberts knows the Constitution and that the United States is a federation of separate states (First clue: Read the name!) and that the federal government is a representative democracy.
The roots of the two terms are Latin, Publicus meaning "of the people" and Greek, Demos meaning "the people." Democracy is "rule by the people." Republic means "a thing of the people." (By the way, "thing" comes from "Althing" which in Iceland, Sweden and other Nordic countries to to refer to an assembly of free men which met annually to make laws, try cases and make major decisions affecting the whole people, elect leaders, etc.)

The important point about both terms is that the sovereignty or right to govern belongs to the people, whether directly or by representation. America stands for the proposition that all people have unalienable rights, and "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Justice Roberts knows all this, and what is more, he understands that democracy is threatened by judges who arrogate to themselves the right to determine that laws enacted by democratic means are null and void, and therefore, that judicial power should be exercised very cautiously and not without a substantial consensus of the people. He should be supported, because he understands these principles and because too many previous justices have thought that their job was to determine what laws are just according to their standards, to strike down those that aren't or rewrite them to suit their own views of fairness.

He also knows that when the courts allow themselves to be used as an alternative to the political process, it results in disasters like the political fights in recent years over confirmation of new federal judges, which harm the respect and independence courts should have.

He is a man of great intelligence, learning and sound judgment and, by all reports, sterling character. He belongs on the Supreme Court.

I hope they publish it.